yes. I would agree. I however, can't deny that it is, for myself anyway, the belief in Christ that makes me want for live out the morality. There is absloutly no sane reason to put everyone before yourself, or at least to make a decision to try to, without that belief.
It's not literal belief in the bible that is the problem. I trust the Bible, and it's from there that I get this harmless-to-society-if-aplied-by-each-person-by-that-person teaching. I can, would, and do take up a scripturaly based chalenge to anyone who belives that it's Godly and right to tell somone else what to do, even if it is the right thing.
there is a reason I have a problem with the Roman catholic church, and much of the church in the states, that reason is that it has become more akin to the pharasees that put Christ to death (more interested in beeing seen to be upholdig the law than in God's will) than the early christian church, which was characterised by a voulentary giving up of wealth for the good of the rest of the church and those suffering in the world at large.
The idea that it is a Christian's place to root out evil and destroy it and to enforce christian morality on people is not scripturaly sound, I will back that up if you wish.
I'm not disputing your view on the moral content of Christianity, that all sounds fair enough to me. It's just that it's more or less the same moral content as that of Islam or Judaism or Hinduism or pretty much any modern religion. There are atheists and agnostics (and not just a few) that recognise that treating people around them well is likely to improve other people's treatment of them and contribute to a better social environment and that perpetuating a cycle of violence is fairly futile behaviour.
Incidentally, the reason the original tone of this post exhibited a pretty unjustified level of schadenfreude is because that historically it has been heavily implied (if not stated) that members of organised religions occupy a higher moral ground than secularists and I was somewhat amused to read that not only may this not be be the case but in fact the opposite may be true! (As I have long suspected, frankly.)
and were they to adhere to christian morality they would, and cetainly I would have thought being christian would make it easier to do so, but yes when organised religion starts trying to enforce morality its a slippery slope to a damned, psychotic and generaly unpleasent society.
It's not literal belief in the bible that is the problem. I trust the Bible, and it's from there that I get this harmless-to-society-if-aplied-by-each-person-by-that-person teaching. I can, would, and do take up a scripturaly based chalenge to anyone who belives that it's Godly and right to tell somone else what to do, even if it is the right thing.
there is a reason I have a problem with the Roman catholic church, and much of the church in the states, that reason is that it has become more akin to the pharasees that put Christ to death (more interested in beeing seen to be upholdig the law than in God's will) than the early christian church, which was characterised by a voulentary giving up of wealth for the good of the rest of the church and those suffering in the world at large.
The idea that it is a Christian's place to root out evil and destroy it and to enforce christian morality on people is not scripturaly sound, I will back that up if you wish.
Reply
Incidentally, the reason the original tone of this post exhibited a pretty unjustified level of schadenfreude is because that historically it has been heavily implied (if not stated) that members of organised religions occupy a higher moral ground than secularists and I was somewhat amused to read that not only may this not be be the case but in fact the opposite may be true! (As I have long suspected, frankly.)
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment